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Cachaça

Outside of Brazil (where it is the best-selling spirit), cachaça is best known for its starring role in the caipirinha—a simple three-ingredient, lime-infused cocktail. Rum drinkers will find cachaça to have a familiar taste. Both are distilled from sugarcane, but cachaça is made from fresh cane juice, while rum is usually produced from molasses (which is cooked). The difference gives cachaça more vegetal, herbal notes than what you might find in other spirits. Use Food & Wine’s guide to find great cocktail recipes that call for cachaça, plus recommendations for our favorite bottles.

Imperial Bulldog is the first drink that Jane Danger created with Austin Hennelly, her partner at Mother of Pearl in New York City. She admires his cheeky finishing touches, like the miniature bottle of Underberg bitters inverted in the glass. As the ice melts, the bottle slowly empties into the drink.
Slideshow:More Easy Cocktail RecipesThis recipe originally appeared in the Food & Wine 2016 Cocktails book.

This is Alex Renshaw’s take on a tiki cocktail. “It’s essentially a sour that I broke the rules with,” he says. Renshaw sweetens the sugarcane-based cachaça and bourbon with pineapple juice and citrusy Velvet Falernum.
Slideshow: Rum Cocktail Recipes
Recipe from Food & Wine Cocktails 2015